Music Theory for Flute

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The clef

While the clef isn’t specific to the flute, it’s the perfect place to start. If you’ve ever used a piano music theory book, you know they cover treble and bass clefs.

Well, the flute only uses treble clef.

The treble clef has five lines and four spaces, and you can remember them as follows:

Lines: Every Good Boy Does Fine

Spaces: FACE rhymes with space

To play notes above or below the staff, we use ledger lines. Ledger lines are short lines that extend the written range of a clef. And as flutists, that’s really important.

The range

When you start learning flute, you’ll only be playing a few notes. And unfortunately, those first notes don’t line up with those on a piano.

The first notes on a piano start at middle C, below the treble clef. But the first few notes for a flute player are right in the middle of the treble clef with B and G as common starting notes.

Once you reach an advanced level, you’ll have a much larger range. The lowest note on the flute is middle C or the B just below that. If you live in North America, odds are you’ll upgrade to a flute with a B footjoint at some point.

Then the highest note of the flute’s normal range is a D over three octaves above middle C. That’s quite the range!

Breath marks

One thing that piano players don’t have to think about is when to breathe. They can breathe whenever they need to.

But as flute players, we have to breathe when it makes sense for the music. We can’t just stop playing a note because we’re out of breath.

That’s where breath marks come in. I’ve seen a few different styles from a comma or check mark to a skinny arrow pointing down.

Different composers use different marks, so you should know at least a couple of them. And oddly enough, some composers and arrangers use one mark for a quick breath and another mark for a fuller breath.

Harmonics

Love them or hate them, most flutists will come across harmonics. If you overblow a note enough, you’ll create a pitch in that original note’s harmonic series.

I won’t go into the harmonic series here, but playing harmonics can help in multiple ways.

First, it can build better air support and breath control. Second, a composer can use harmonics to change the tone of a note or phrase. Harmonics don’t sound exactly like the “normal” fingering.

If you see an open dot above a note, you should use a harmonic fingering and overblow to produce the written note.

Note: I’ve heard the notation for harmonics is different for other instruments. So if you also play other instruments, this notation may or may not apply to them.

Flutter that tongue

Another flute-specific notation (or at least woodwind-specific) is for flutter tonguing.

I’m still working on my flutter tonguing, and it’s a pretty advanced technique. So if you’re a beginner, you don’t have to worry about this one quite yet.

Flutter tonguing is when you produce a super fast articulation (faster than double or triple tonguing).

You can produce it by rolling your tongue like a Spanish R sound. Or you can make a gargle in your throat to create a similar effect.

The notation for flutter tonguing looks like a few diagonal lines drawn beneath the note.

So…

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